I've had a Dell Latitude D630 for almost 2 years now and there's one key feature that needs to be pointed out first. It's solid. Although I've never dropped it, it has been through a lot. It's very difficult to warp the LCD screen by applying pressure to the back of the display, and the screen is recessed a fair bit from the outside edges. I've seen quite a few people crack their screens but you'd have to try pretty hard to break this one. At first glance it appears thin, plastic, and flimsy; but when you pick it up and hold it you can tell there is a strong network of metal bracings underneath the surface.When I bought mine brand new from Dell, quite a few technical things went wrong. First the touchpad never worked well out of the box. It skips, freezes and stops working intermittently. I understand this is a big problem with Dell laptops. The other joystick style mouse works well, but after a year started occasionally drifting to the top right of my screen at slow speed so I had to disable it. I usually use an external mouse anyway. After having the laptop for about a year, a section of the motherboard fried and the computer kept giving me video driver errors, but after I called Dell they politely came to my home and swapped the defective part free of charge. I play my fair share of PC games and this thing gets hot. Sometimes the bottom of the laptop will become uncomfortable to set on your thighs so I'm not surprised the board burned out. It's important to note that this machine only gets hot when it's running a video game. It usually runs at normal temperatures doing everything else. I invested in a fan cooling pad which does a good job keeping it cool.
Other than the mouse and heat issues, it's a good machine. It's a nicely sized laptop as well. Personally I feel like it's not too big or too small.
UPDATE April 20, 2012:
Even though nobody is probably still buying these machines, I'd like to report on my D630 almost three years after my original review was written.
It has been almost five years with the D630 and it's still functioning, of course not as well. The cooling fan is not as strong as it used to be, and the machine gets pretty hot when running multiple programs or playing video (years of dust accumulation probably affects the heat sink's ability to transfer heat to some degree, no pun intended). Lucky for me I don't play video games any longer, as I now see them as a waste of time, so that will no doubt lessen the damaging impact to my hardware. Right now with only Firefox open the machine is a normal temperature. The wireless card periodically stops working and I must disable and re-enable it to get it to work again. Some of the keyboard keys have become very sensitive probably due to debris underneath, but all are still registering. The touchpad still occasionally acts up by sometimes not detecting my finger in a specific area toward the center of the pad causing my pointer to leap as I cross over it, but for some odd reason flicking it a few times gets it to work properly again, and other times it goes completely unresponsive until I restart the computer. The pointing stick stopped tracking slowly across my screen and has become fully functional, albeit awkward to use. The original battery has died and I'm currently on my second. Dell let me keep a brand new optical drive after they misdiagnosed a hardware issue (DVD drive failed to detect discs) that turned out to be another fried motherboard making it twice I've had the motherboard swapped under warranty, so my DVD drive still works flawlessly. Hopefully it won't happen again since the warranty expired almost two year ago; the original warranty being three years covering everything but the battery and LCD display. The screen is still very clear with no dead pixels.
Not much else to report besides the system's performance benefited from a OS reinstallation. A comment below mentions bluescreens, but I think bluescreens are more due to badly written software than the machine itself.
The hardware is more than adequate for the needs of our students. The Core 2 Duo processor isn't top of the line but will run most operating systems flawlessly. I tested this one with Windows XP, Windows Vista and am presently running OpenSuSe 11.1. The machine I am using comes with 2 Gigs of ram but can be upgraded to 4 gig. The only time I notice any ram issues is when I am doing video intensive work while the 3D desktop in SuSe is turned on. The resolution only maxes out at 1440X900, but the clarity of the LCD screen more than compensates for that. The 4 USB ports are also a nice addition to the machine. There are other Dell Latitude's I've experienced that only provide two ports.
The durability of this machine is more than one would expect from a Dell product. With previous Dell laptops I easily pop keys off and have even cracked a screen by dropping only 10 inches. The D630 has given me a new found hope of the durability of Dell laptops. I have knocked it off the table without any issue. I have left it in my vehicle overnight (-10 degrees) and it was just fine. My children have used and abused this laptop. All it seems to require is a nice wipe down and it looks as nice as the day the machine was given to me.
The only things I would like to see improved on is a SD-card reader built in. Maybe a little better speaker set. I believe there is only one speaker built into this machine. There is no S-video port on this machine. With previous Dell's in my possession, there have always been S-video and I have become acclimated to having one on my machine. The D630 also appears to be a little heavier than what I am use to using. I don't mind lugging my laptop around but I other people I talk with say they would never carry anything that heavy with them for work. (mac)
Buy Dell Latitude D630 14.1-Inch Notebook Now
I bought this laptop directly from dell Financial Services auction on ebay. I did not even know that they have it here on Amazon Marketplace too. Even though the description said manufacturer refurbished the laptop I received looked like new. It came with power adapter and a Dell Windows XP Reinstallation CD and built in Intel PROSet Wireless Card. Absolutely no bloatware is included.Now this may not be a top of the line machine but it is pretty adequate for home and school or even Small Home Office use. The neat part is that once you boot up the machine for the first time it would automatically install Windows XP after going through some preliminary steps. It even gives you option to enter setup and configure things but you are better off leaving the machine alone to do its thing and install windows XP or whichever operating system it is bundled with unless you're techie. Once windows finishes installation you can pretty much install anything you want. I have so far installed Open Office, MS Office 2003, Firefox, Chrome, Avast Anti Virus, Trusteer Rapport security Software and many other productivity softwares and the machine boots up and runs smoothly.
It does not come with webcam so I installed Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 and Microsoft Lifecam Cinema and either camera runs smoothly even on HD modes. I use Lifecam Cinema more often because it's stand is perfect fit for D630 bezel as opposed to the Quickcam Pro 9000's stand which tend to wobble.
I will advise you buy this laptop directly from Dell either here on Amazon Marketplace or on ebay where it is listed under Dell_Financial_Services. You will likely receive a laptop that will be like new but more importantly you will get 30 days warranty.
This laptop is of right price, size and specs: 14" bright LCD, 2GB Ram, 80GB harddisk space and 2GHZ Intel Dual Core processor that is more than adequate for most home, school and or Small Home Office use. It is sturdy and sleek looking too.
There is one thing that Dell scrimped on here: the tiny single speaker that is barely audible! I use an external Frisby USB laptop Speakers. I also use headphone when I am on the road. It is worthy to note that this tiny speaker belies a powerful sound card that only becomes apparent when you put on a headphone.
NB: Don't forget to switch on the wireless radio or you will not be able to use the wifi connection. The switch is on same side and next to the headphone jack. It is switched off by default. Once you switch it on it will detect a bunch of wifi hot spots including yours, if any. Select your SSID from the displayed options and enter your router's WEP Key and you will be good to go. I have at&t 2WIRE Wireless Gateway and the WEP Key is the ten digit number directly below the serial number located on the side or bottom of the router depending on whether it is standing vertically or lying on it's side. The built in wireless card is powerful. I highly recommend this laptop to anyone who may be on budget but not willing to compromise on quality and performance.
Read Best Reviews of Dell Latitude D630 14.1-Inch Notebook Here
I bought this laptop because I needed a laptop to carry around with me to work and school. My regular laptop was expensive, very bulky, and felt a bit flimsy, and I wanted something a bit more durable that I wouldn't have to worry about breaking, but that was still a workhorse. I work at a computer repair shop at my university, and we take in a lot of laptops. Of all of the laptops we work on, I found the D630 to be one of the easiest to maintenance. When I was looking for a work laptop, I wanted a business laptop that could handle the tasks I needed it to accomplish and was easy to repair if need be, but was still within my limited college student budget. I searched around for a while, and a refurbished D630 for about $300 was what I came up with. Everything else was either overpriced or unimpressive and old. I decided to take the risk of getting a refurbished laptop for so cheap, and I am extremely satisfied.When I got the computer it came pre-installed with XP pro, and I decided to set up a dual boot with Ubuntu. Ubuntu installed extremely easily and all of the drivers were ready to go right away. The computer has had no trouble doing anything I set it to so far, and has exceeded my expectations. I learned that some of these machines had video card problems in which the video card would overheat and cause screen splitting, but that is only with the models that have nVidia GPUs. As long as you choose to purchase one with an Intel GPU that recall issue is not a problem.
As far as how the laptop functions and works with the user, I am very impressed. The keys feel very ergonomic and natural when typing, and the area where you rest your palms is a very comfortable texture and size. The touchpad is easy to use and allows your finger to slide along it without much difficult, unlike some laptops on which the touchpad grips your finger and makes using it more of a hassle. A lot of laptops also are made of very cheap, easy-to-break plastics and feel very flimsy, but the D630 feels more rugged and durable with its magnesium casing. I can't say anything about the battery life because my D630 came with an old battery, a risk I took when buying a refurbished laptop. I've only heard good things about how long they last when not plugged in, however, and am buying a new battery as soon as possible. The 2 GHz Intel dual core processor works very smoothly and efficiently, and with 2 GB of RAM most applications run smoothly. Overall, I am very satisfied with this laptop and feel like it is an underrated machine, and I would definitely recommend it for anyone who needs an inexpensive laptop.
Want Dell Latitude D630 14.1-Inch Notebook Discount?
I've been using a Dell T630 for the past 3 days, 8 hours a day while undertaking some intensive training class. I am not going to enumerate the published specs for this machine but, instead I will run the specs against what I perceive as its usability and how that correlates to the price.It's probably fair to state that there is little remarkable about this machine. So, here they are, my observations:
Most of the basic featuresc found on cheaper models are found in the T630 as well.
Some features found in cheaper models, such as biometric (fingerprint) authentication are not supported.
Max resolution is 1440x900
Small 60-80GB hard drive I can't see how equipping a $2000 laptop with a $50 hard drive can be possibly justified (for our class purposes, an installation that included Windows XP, Firefox and some VMWare filled up the disk, leaving only 1GB free).
Keybord is below average, "molasses" feel, need to strike the keys hard for a keystroke to register.
Same as above for the mouse button emulators, only worse.
4 USB ports (that's a good thing), 2 in the back and to on the right.
Heavy.
I award this machine 3 stars only because I am ignoring the outrageous posted price because prices can and do change. So, price not considered, it's an average, unremarkable machine. I can tolerate it for another day or 2 of training but, if this was my office laptop, the size of the hard drive and the subpar keyboard would proably have me petition my IT department for a replacement.
Of course, using it with a docking station (and it DOES have docking capabilities) would take care of the keyboard issue but the minuscule hard drive would still be a concern.
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